Footprints - Where have we come from? Where will we go?

"Our cultural heritage surrounds us wherever we are and shapes not only the way we deal with our history, but also our self-perception and our cultural identity. Impressions from the eTwinning year of European Cultural Heritage, which preceded the year of Democratic Participation, triggered the idea for this project, which will bring together cultural and political thoughts of six partner schools from different European countries (Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Latvia, and Greece). Democracy as well as cultural heritage will be the leading issues of the project, mirrored in its methodological approach as well as in the activities organized during the mobilities. The aim is to provide our students with a profound understanding of our common European roots, history and development. This is more important than ever in a political environment shaped by uncertainties, by rising nationalism culminating in Brexit, and also by labour migration. The project is mainly targeted at the participating students of the partner schools, who are aged between 14 and 17. Not every student of these schools has the opportunity and means to travel to other countries, and their political understanding often heavily relies on media coverage and popular stereotypes. It is especially these students that we want to reach with our project. The intercultural experience and the exchange with students from six European nations, with different sentiments and opinions about the European Union, will help break down borders of prejudice and skepticism towards Europe. For the two-year duration of the project we want to encourage our students to look at the political situation in Europe from different angles and to develop an informed view on the world around them. The search for “footprints” of cultural heritage in their own and in other countries will provide the conceptual framework for the project, which will challenge them to step back into the past to explore their current situation and to express their expectations, dreams and fears for the future. Values such as tolerance, diversity and respect, already embedded into the curricula of all participating nations, will be put into practice during our project activities and promote a sense of European identity. All the planned activities will reinforce the idea of European citizenship among the staff, the pupils and everybody else involved in the project. Acitvities will include research on - the culture of remembrance (getting to know local memorials, expressing personal response, creating an own monument or bringing a monument alive)- the development of work and professions (comparing the employment situation in the different countries, doing workshops on traditional crafts, visiting local industries, writing ""future job biographies"")- migration and integration (using the approach of oral history, making interviews, creating maps of migration routes, writing about dreams/expectations about the future of Euope's borders) - food culture and eating habits (experiencing local production of food, learning about sustainability, making Prezi presentation, padlets and different types of graphs, video tutorials)- sustainable tourism and heritage (visiting sights representing national identity, workshop on different perspectives of tourism; quiz, blog entry, city quest)- the search for identity (exploring stereotypes, concepts of identity; drama activities, co-operative learning techniques of problem solving).The time between the mobilities should be used for preparatory activities as well as for evaluation of the experiences abroad. The students will prepare the topics for the transnational meetings by creating slides (using presentation software like prezi and powerpoint) or digital posters (using IT-tools such as piktochart). Furthermore, we will focus on the improvement of language and communication skills, future-oriented ICT skills and cross-cultural team building. At the end of the project we will compose a tool box, containing our collected materials (questionnaires, overviews of IT tools etc.), which we will publish on the schools’ websites and on our Twinspace as an inspiration and guide for interested teachers. Transnational collaboration is of immeasurable value if we want to meet the challenges that currently disrupt European core values. In this context it is essential for students to learn about our cultural heritage and to relate it to the past, the present and the future. This project will not only improve their social and linguistic skills, but also change the way in which they see themselves, as European citizens."